I’m really happy for this feast. The title alone makes this a big celebration. We do not only celebrate one or two saints but ALL the Saints of the Catholic Faith. We are aware that there are more than 366 Saints canonized in our faith. The days in a year are not enough to assign each Saint a day. This feast day solves that problem. Today, we honour all of them/
We honour today those who had been worthy to enter the Kingdom of God. We celebrate this day to move us to strive in life through their examples and merit the mercy of God through heir intercession.
In today’s Gospel we have JESUS on the mount teaching the Beatitudes. Right at the start of His teaching ministry, the Lord Jesus made sure that the apostles understood the need to be holy. To enter the Kingdom is the supreme goal of following Jesus. The Beatitudes are supposed to guide, challenge, and bring the apostles to eternal life. In our present context, the Beatitudes are meant to make us saints. To be a saint is the minimum requirement of being a good disciple.
If we look at the lives of the saints, they are no different from us except that they had seriously responded to God’s invitation to holiness. Some, like Sts. Peter, Paul, Magdalene, and Augustine were even worse than many of us. yet, they attained sainthood because they had found favour with God and had lived out His teachings.
St.Paul realised that he may boast if it is in the Lord. We can also say that we can be saints in the Lord, that is, if we are to claim and strive for holiness, it will not be for praise, recognition, or vanity but because of our love for the Lord. It is being with God, to gain heaven, that is our goal.
The Saints remind us to keep our sights fixed high, to remember who we are and the glorious possibility that God offers us. We know that they are praying for us.
Not only the saints’ lives but also their writings are precious gifts of grace to us to remind us of who we are and the glory that God is offering to us
We hope and pray that all those near and dear to us who have departed are already or will be numbered among the saints and so we pray for them especially during this month.
“Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope based on him makes himself pure, as he is pure.”